Lenovo, Asustek Launch Tablets To Take On iPad

Lenovo Group, China’s largest personal-computer maker by shipments, and Taiwan’s Asustek Computer have both started selling tablet devices in their home markets, as more Asian PC makers launch products meant to compete with Apple’s popular iPad.

The two devices enter an increasingly crowded space as a range of gadget and computer makers look to diversify their product lines and fuel growth by offering tablet devices.

Both Lenovo’s LePad tablet and Asustek’s product, called Eee Pad Transformer, have 10-inch screens and use Google’s Android operating system. Their pricing is also similar. The LePad starts at 3,499 yuan ($533) for a version with Wi-Fi wireless Internet connectivity and 16 gigabytes of memory. Asustek is taking pre-orders for a 16-gigabyte model of its tablet for $505.

Those price levels are close to those of competing products. Apple’s iPad 2, which began selling in March, and Research In Motion’s PlayBook tablet, which will go on sale in North America on April 19, both start at $499 for a 16-gigabyte model. The lowest price of Motorola Mobility Holdings’ Xoom tablet, another competing device, is $599.

But analysts say the features of the Lenovo and Asustek tablets don’t stand out from the crowd of competing tablets.

“LePad is just another Android-based tablet PC, and I can’t find any difference between the one that’s from Motorola, one from Lenovo or one from Samsung,” said Mark Po, an analyst at UOB Kay Hian. Still, Lenovo does have the advantage of strong distribution channels in China, and the company’s market share goal for the LePad “would be no problem” if Chinese mobile operators support its sales, Po said.

Lenova aims for its tablet computer’s market share in China to match the company’s personal computer market within three years. Lenovo ranks first in China with a 32.2% share of the country’s 15.7 million PC shipments in the fourth quarter, according to market research firm IDC. The company hasn’t said whether Chinese mobile operators will offer the LePad.

Analysts said Transformer is not competitive in terms of design, operating system and applications because Asustek hasn’t had much time to improve and customize Honeycomb, the most recent version of Android and the one Asustek is using.

“They just got the source code for Honeycomb in February. The new operating system is immature. That’s why the user experience and performance are much weaker than that on iPad 2 and even on the first generation of iPad,” said Calvin Huang, analyst at Daiwa.

In terms of appearance, Asustek’s Transformer is a bit clunky – it is 12.98 millimeters thick and it weighs 680 grams. The iPad 2 weighs 600 grams and is 8.8mm thick.

The way Lenovo decided to launch the LePad didn’t seem fine-tuned to win global publicity for the product. The company held a launch event with executives in Shanghai but it didn’t invite foreign media and declined our requests for an interview. Lenovo did send out a press release after 7:00 p.m. local time, but it wasn’t fully clear from the document when the company had started selling the LePad.

Lenovo’s announcement also left unclear when a companion device for the LePad — the IdeaPad U1, a hybrid notebook-and-tablet product allowing the LePad to slide into a keyboard base to switch to operating Windows 7 – would go on sale. A company spokesman likewise was unable to say when Lenovo would begin selling the IdeaPad U1, which was unveiled in January last year and had originally been slated to hit retail shelves that June.

Asustek’s Transformer has a docking station to convert the device into a full notebook PC.